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Crazy clomidians

kgranju — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 19:04:00 GMT

I try not to judge other people's family-building choices, as long as they love their kids and can take care of them. Gay, straight, married, divorced, big families, small families, IVF or surrogacy, bio-children or adopted.... These choices belong to the competent adults making them. I also believe that the decision as to whether, when and how many children a woman has should belong to her, not to me, or to you. Reproductive freedom is among the most fundamental of human rights.

So why am I struggling so hard to wrap my head around the apparently large number - judging from discussion on the interwebs - of perfectly fertile women who are taking fertility drugs - often unprescribed - for the sole purpose of increasing their chances of achieving twins, triplets or even quads?

I discovered this phenomenon after I myself was prescribed clomid by my doctor. I am extremely nervous about taking it, and as is my way, I began researching the topic somewhat obsessively, mostly online. I knew that the medication ups a woman's chances of conceiving multiples - something I really want to avoid - so I Googled "clomid multiples." As I began perusing the sites that popped up, I noticed that at least one-fourth of the conversation about taking the drug centered around the correct dosages and timing to take the drug in order to become pregnant with more than one bambino.

This just seems....crazy to me. I mean, the serious health and disability risks to babies born in groups of two, three and four are exponentially higher. If a woman is already capable of conceiving and carrying a healthy pregnancy to term, why would she take a fertility medicine with the sole purpose in her case being to create that risky situation for her own baby(ies)? And as for taking it unprescribed - GAH! I am scared to death to be taking it with a precription under the careful supervision of my doctor. I cannot imagine getting it from some place in Mexico and then taking it without any monitoring. And if I became pregnant with twins, I would be very, very anxious.

But maybe I am being too hard on these women. I mean, plenty of people think I am crazy myself for trying this hard to have a fifth child at age 41. Maybe I'm really no different.

But I'm curious to know what other people think of this apparent trend of trying to have multiples using unprescribed meds. Would you ever consider doing this? HAVE you done this?

Tell me what you think .

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Hope springs eternal...or maybe I'm just delusional

kgranju — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 01:52:00 GMT

We've decided to keep trying to have a baby - or at least give it one more go. That's what feels right, mostly. There is certainly a part of me that says we should just call it a day, given that I have already given birth to four healthy children. But considering how much older H (17), J (13) and E (10) are, and the fact that they spend half their time with their father, giving up would mean that 16 month old C would mostly grow up in an only-child-like household. And while I have no issue with other parents who decide a singleton kid is the right choice for their own family, I don't want that for her. She already misses her big brothers and her sister when they are away every other week, and I know that will only become more pronounced as they get older.

Even before this last pregnancy ended in miscarriage, I'd been carefully charting my fertility for the past several years, using the great info in this book, and I've also been doing a lot of research into the causes of recurrent pregnancy loss. Many healthy women experience one or two miscarriages in their lives, and the reasons are random and generally unknown. But when someone miscarries over and over and over, as I have in recent years, there is generally a specific cause - or several specific causes - behind the problem.

After the first several losses, I had some genetic testing done, and it was discovered that I have a fairly common genetic thrombophilia condition that CAN be the cause of recurrent losses. Because of this condition, I am taking what my perinatologist believes are the appropriate preventive medications, but I want to have some discussion with him when we next see him in about 10 days about stepping up the medication protocol to the next level, something he told me I did NOT need to do in this past pregnancy.

But one other issue I've discovered in charting my fertility is that I likely have what is known as a luteal phase defect. This means that I ovulate less than 10 days before my next period starts, while an optimal cycle (for fertility purposes anyway) has ovulation occurring 14 days or more before the next cycle begins. During a cycle where that ovulation becomes a pregnancy, the short "luteal phase" makes for a less favorable hormonal environment for the pregnancy to progress. My doctor has been treating this by giving me progesterone supplements after pregnancy is confirmed, but some doctors feel like a better way to treat the issue is to use Clomid to stimulate ovulation earlier in the cycle in order to force a longer luteal phase.

So I am going to point this luteal phase issue out to my doctor, and I am going to ask him to prescribe Clomid. I am more than a little nervous about the higher risk of multiples with the use of Clomid, but I think it's a risk I'm willing to take at this point. I also know that for me, Clomid is as far as I am willing to go in the way of fertility treatments. If it works, great. If not, I'll be really disappointed, but I am at peace with the fact that you really don't always get everything you want in life just because you want it. I want to remain very conscious that I don't let this baby quest get in the way of enjoying what I am lucky enough to already have: children, husband, work, family, health... It has to remain secondary.

So we'll give this pregnancy thing at least one more try. Maybe two - max. And that's a scary thought. I know that if we manage to get knocked up again, this time I really won't tell anyone at all until I am at least five months pregnant (of course, by that time, it would be completely obvious to anyone with eyeballs). And I will have to assume a mindset that expects the pregnancy to end badly. That's the only way to handle it, I think, and it will be somewhat mentally torturous. But my heart tells me there is one more baby coming to our family.

I hope I am not just delusional ;-)

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Can you be a little bit pregnant?

kgranju — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 00:10:00 GMT

NOTE FROM KATIE: Since posting this last week, I've had several people ask me whether it's okay to congratulate us on the pregnancy, since we remain a bit nervous about it. Absolutely yes :-) We are happy, and hopeful, and are trying to assume that all will go wonderfully. I am feeling good, and thus far, all signs are positive. Well wishes welcome!

Common wisom says that no one can be "a little bit pregnant." You either are, or you aren't. But for those of us who have the bad fortune to have miscarried repeatedly, we know this just isn't true. You certainly can be kinda, sorta pregnant. And that's what I am right now. I am in that exhausting, anxiety-provoking phase between the positive home pregnancy test (YAY!) and the unfortunately named "viability scan" ultrasound, which will take place at my perinatologist's office in about two weeks.

This is a highly personal topic, and I'm not entirely comfortable blogging about it. I did already touch on the issue, recently opening up about the fact that I've had trouble carrying a pregnancy past the first trimester. And after I wrote about my own health problem - and that's what it is - I received so many e-mails from women dealing with the same thing who thanked me for being honest about this sensitive topic that I've decided to stick my neck out even further, and share this next part of my journey. I hope that telling my story in an open way helps other women going through the same thing. Because this is tough, and those of us who have experienced it can maybe support each other and demystify it, and make it easier for others who are also living through this desperate, Googling-madness phase of an early, tentative pregnancy-following-loss.

With my first pregnancy, almost two decades ago, I never even saw the doctor until near the very end of the first trimester. I certainly never had a routine ultrasound until maybe well into the second trimester. And between the day of the positive home test and the first doctor visit, it never occurred to me to wonder whether the pregnancy was real, or whether it would "stick." I was pregnant. Plain and simple. Now, however, the positive home test is followed almost immediately by trips every two to three days to the high risk OB, where I have blood drawn so the doctor can follow my (hopefullly) rising HCG and progesterone levels.

At least, that's what we are supposed to see. HCG, in case you've never had the pleasure of obsessively researching it on the Web, is the yes-you're-pregnant hormone that is supposed to double every 48-72 hours in the first weeks of pregnancy. If it does, it's an excellent sign - though not comletely predictive in and of itself. If it does not, the odds are poor for a successful pregnancy. Progesterone should be at a heightened level as well. Most doctors like to see it at 20 or above in the first trimester. So since getting the positive home test a few weeks ago, I've been stuck repeatedly by the bloodsucking needle at the doctor's office, and so far, so good. HCG is rising appropriately. Progesterone is, as the enthusiastic nurse at the doc's office said on the phone Friday, "kickass good this time!" And I am sleepy. Very sleepy. Plus, Jon could fill you in on how my emotions are all over the place for the past several weeks. So I should be relieved, right? These are clearly symptoms. There is every reason to expect that I am thoroughly pregnant, and we will welcome a baby - our last - home in the summer of 2009.

But then the doubt begins to set in. My HCG numbers are normal, but they are in the low end of the normal range. What could this mean? I feel a little twinge in my lower back. Could that be a bad sign? And I am steeling myself emotionally for the day when we go to the doc's office for the scan, at which time the kind ultrasound tech will turn to us to give us the bad news we've come to expect: "I'm sorry, but this isn't a viable pregnancy."

We've told the kids the closest thing to the truth in our situation: that our family will find out in a few weeks whether we are expecting a baby sister or brother. For them, and everyone else, that's a simple enough approach. Just wait and see and deal with whatever we find out. Try not to worry about it before then. Reasonable enough.

But for me, the one who has to live with being a little bit pregnant in the interim, it's not a lot of fun. And that's an understatement!

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My eyeglasses, myself

kgranju — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 19:49:00 GMT

I first started wearing glasses when I was 8 years old. My mother says she finally realized I needed glasses when I told her our horses had escaped, but when the family went outside to check, everyone but me could clearly see that the horses were inside not outside of the fence. I was promptly marched off to the optometrist, and I came home wearing these humdingers.

By the time I was 10 years old, I had downsized ever-so-slightly to this pair, in a lovely shade of frosty blue plastic.

(This is me with a cow I won in a 4-H essay contest in which I had to explain why I deserved to win a cow. Her name was Bonnie. She was a Jersey.)

In middle school, I switched over to some John Lennon granny glasses, but by 9th grade, I'd talked my parents into contact lenses, which I wore all through high school and college. I never cleaned them properly and sometimes carelessly left them in for 24 hours straight, in direct contradiction to the doctor's safety warnings when he handed them over to me. It's a wonder I didn't contract some terrible eyeball fungus during that period.

At age 23, while pregnant with my first baby, I finally gave up on contacts altogether because I was too poor to replace one of the lenses when I lost it. It was back to glasses for me, and I've been wearing them ever since. Since then, I've never had the desire to ditch my trusty facial appendages. To me, my glasses are as much a part of who I am as my left arm. Not only am I like a helplessly blind baby shrew when I am without them, I also feel naked.

Every three or four years I go in to replace my glasses, about the time I realize that I can no longer see as well. Each time I get a new pair, the optometrist shakes his head in wonderment as he examines my eyes, saying he rarely sees otherwise healthy people whose eyes continue to deteriorate at this rate by my age. Last week, when I got my most recent new pair, the optometrist put it more succinctly: "You're getting as blind as Mr. Magoo," is what he said.

Also at this last appointment, he asked me whether I'd noticed any difference in my ability to read small print. "It might be time for bifocals," he said.

Oh no, I said confidently. I'm nearsighted only. I see up close just fine.

Secretly, however, I knew that I had been having a bit more trouble reading things. But bifocals already? Hell no. What am I? One of the Golden Girls? Harumph.

But I've been wearing my new, much stronger prescription for a week or so now, and I can no longer deny the painful, painful truth. I cannot read fine print any more. And this new prescription only made it worse. Now, when I have to read the instructions on a bottle of medicine, for example, I have to lift my glasses up so I can see the item directly, and then I squint through one eye. THEN I can see the words. This is not good.

I guess I need bifocals. And I will be going back to the optometrist today to have my prescription adjusted.

It's funny, the things that make you feel "old." For me, this is definitely one of them. As bad as my eyes are, I've always consoled myself with the thought that I can read just fine. I think of bifocals as an undeniable, visual signal to the world that I am Not Young. And it's moments like these that make me think about what it will be like for C, born at the end of my 39th year, to have a 58 year old mama when she graduates high school. I'll only be 42 when her eldest sibling graduates. That seems about right to me. But 58? With bifocals? Will I also have a walker and orthopedic shoes by then? Will she be embarrassed? Will I be embarrassed?

Or will I just be mama? The only one she has. I know that sometimes it's been odd in years past for my oldest children to have the youngest mom in the group. Maybe your mother embarasses you no matter what her circumstances. Even old lady glasses.

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So, I'm kind of getting sick of miscarrying

kgranju — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 19:37:00 GMT

I have been blogging about my life - particularly my life as a parent - for about six years now, and I've blogged through marriage, divorce,work, life as a single mama, remarriage, pregnancy, childbirth... There are some topics I've been pretty open about and others about which I've been more circumspect.

This morning, at my son's football game, I got into a conversation with a woman I'd never met before. She's very pregnant, and as we talked about epidurals, and which OB she's using, and all sorts of typical topics like that, she mentioned that before becoming pregnant with this baby, due any day now, she had endured multiple miscarriages.

Me too, I found myself blurting out to a total stranger. I've had a bunch of miscarriages, too.

And then suddenly, for the first time ever, I started crying about all those miscarriages I've suffered over the past several years.

She patted me, and I felt embarrassed, and then I clumsily offered my congratulations to her, and went and sat in my car and proceeded to bawl my eyes out for 30 minutes.

This was literally the first time ever that I allowed myself to feel that bad about a fact that only a few very close friends and family members know, but that I've decided to say out loud for the first time: In the past several years, I've miscarried multiple times, most recently about seven weeks ago. I've had miscarriages at 5 weeks and one at ten weeks and a few in the middle. I've had miscarriages that seemed more like a late period - even though I knew I was pregnant - and one that put me in bed for several days after the minor surgeries it required. Mostly, they've just left me tired and quiet for a period of time.

And you know what? I'm getting kind of sick of miscarrying.

My first three babies were born before I was 30 years old. It all went easily, and I completely took it for granted. Life went on. I then divorced, and later met the man I'll be with the rest of my life. We decided to try for a baby right away, with the hope that we would be able to have two children in the following three or four years,

As it turns out, getting pregnant is no problem for me at this point. Staying pregnant? Well, not so much.

Now see, here's where it gets tricky talking about this stuff. Because, we DO have a baby. She's gorgeous and healthy and beautiful. My gratitude for her knows no bounds. And along with the other three children I am lucky enough to have, that means I have given birth to FOUR healthy children. What 41 year old woman with FOUR children has a right to even dare hope for another? And certainly, a woman with FOUR children has no right to complain about multiple miscarriages when there are so many women who have no children at all. Which is one reason why I've kind of kept my mouth shut about this. It sounds really sort of tacky, someone who has four kids complaining that she isn't able to have a fifth. It's sort of like if John McCain complained that he doesn't have enough houses, or if Tiger Woods whined that his golf swing just isn't what it used to be.

But with every miscarriage, it's getting harder to pretend it hasn't happened, harder to remain silent and stoic. The last one was really, really disappointing and difficult. And it coincided with my birthday month, meaning I am extremely conscious of time passing.

We've decided we'll give it another year or so, and see what happens. If it isn't meant to be, we'll graciously accept defeat and close up babymaking shop. It appears that the genetic thrombophilia condition that was identified after the miscarriage I had in October of 2006 may require me to inject myself with blood thinners every day during pregnancy, if I am lucky enough to conceive again. So far, I've just been taking baby aspirin and high doses of folic acid each time the pregnancy test turns up positive, but clearly, more aggressive tactics are in order. And while that doesn't sound like much fun, the repeat miscarrying thing is definitely not much fun either.

So there, I've said it out loud: I've miscarried repeatedly in recent years.

And even though I know I'm really, really blessed to have four healthy children, it hasn't made this experience any less difficult.